Watch protest video here

A huge crowd braved the rain Saturday to go to the Ohio Statehouse and protest President Donald Trump and his administration. It was one of more than 50 such events scheduled for Ohio on Saturday and Sunday and more than 1,400 nationwide. 

Early in the rally, Columbus police said there appeared to be at least 2,000 gathered so far. After it was over, Mia Lewis, and organizer, said 5,000 were at the Capitol, and provided a spreadsheet saying 47,000 attended rallies statewide.

“Truly, people are fed up. A couple of vicious billionaires destroying things–we’ve had enough!” Lewis said in an email, adding, “There were 5,000 people at the rally in Columbus, staying through the wind and rain! A turn out of 5,000 in the capital is fantastic, but what’s really amazing is to see rallies and protests in every corner of the state. (Including) Circleville and Van Wert.”

The gathering was peaceful as people chanted, carried signs and danced to bongo music while a stream of cars traveling up and down High Street honked their support 

Sponsors of this weekend’s “Hands Off” rallies include dozens of advocacy organizations, including the AFL-CIO, Americans for Financial Reform, Common Cause, the Consumer Federation of America, Indivisible, and Planned Parenthood.

As with last Saturday’s protest outside a Columbus Tesla dealership, many were protesting Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, whom Trump is permitting to slash federal programs and employees. They include the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Trump Musk go,” said one sign. Others said, “Hands off science and scientists,” “Get the heil out,” Tax wealth, not work,” and “This penis party must end.”

But the major theme of the protest appeared to be a desire to protect democracy itself. 

“Not a paid protester,” said one sign. “My speech is free.”

That appeared to be a rebuttal to Musk’s claim that people are only protesting because they’re being paid by some unidentified boogeyman. He made that accusation even as he was handing out millions to Wisconsin voters in an attempt to sway and election to the state Supreme Court. He ended up losing badly.

Leslie Kern of Clintonville on Saturday said she felt a duty to protest at the Ohio capitol .

“I am so frightened that we’re going to lose our democracy that I decided that I had to come,” she said. “I heard a story this morning that the people who were deported to El Salvador were all deported illegally.” 

At least one man was improperly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador after being accused without evidence of a gang affiliation, the Associated Press reported last week.

“It’s possible that a majority were not even associated with a gang. It feels to me like Berlin in 1938,” Kern said, referring to a time when thugs controlled by Adolph Hitler harassed, arrested and beat Jews and political dissidents and destroyed their property. “People are being snatched off the street by masked men and no one sees them again. A lot of people die in those prisons. And that was just this morning.”

Unlike some earlier protests, a healthy portion of the crowd Saturday appeared to be under 40.

Lilly Karhoff, a 17-year-old student at Hillyard Bradley High School, said she was protesting with an eye toward the future. 

“This is the country we’re going to be living in,” she said. “Everybody needs to be aware of what’s going on. We need to preserve our democracy and our rights. It’s our democracy and the rights of everyone. Not just women. Not just children.”

She added, “I have many immigrant friends. Many Arab friends. Many Hispanic friends. This affects them and we talk about it.” 

But Kerhoff said administrators at her school won’t allow those concerns to be a topic of classroom discussion.

“There’s a lot of concern among our peers,” she said. “But unfortunately, our teachers have been instructed not to talk about the political climate, so we’re in a very limited environment. So I think it’s important to get out here and spread my voice.”

Kyra Milton, 21, of Columbus said her “whole objective is to stand against what’s happening to America, to our democracy. I’m just fed up with the way things are going and I’m not going to stand for it. I feel like our democracy is being attacked. Our rights. Our freedom of speech. Everything that humanity stands for is being attacked by the current administration.”

Despite all that, Milton said she’s optimistic.

“I feel like if we keep standing up like this, saying we know our rights and stand against them being attacked, we’ll have a better future,” she said.

Kurt Bateman, a member of the United Auto Workers, retired after 30 years of making parts for General Motors on the site where the Hollywood Casino now sits on Columbus’s West side. 

“They traded in middle-class-wage jobs for tip-wage jobs,” he said.

Among the issues Bateman was protesting were Trump’s attacks on organized labor. He added that the massive tariffs Trump implemented last week won’t achieve their stated goal of bringing back American manufacturing.

“We lost that battle in the 80s,” Bateman said. “They said, ‘We don’t care about making anything here. We’re going to financialize the economy.'”

Steven Stone traveled from Nelsonville to protest. Having served in the Army from 1969 to 1974, Stone said of Trump, “He’s not my commander-in-chief.”

“I’m here because the guy that’s supposedly our commander-in-chief called soldiers who died in combat ‘suckers and losers,'” Stone said. “He dishonored me and everybody who served in the military.”

Kern, of Clintonville, said she believed that protests such as the one on Saturday are one of the last tools for preserving American democracy.

“This and some courts are the last bastions standing against fascism,” she said. “Congress has fallen. Every institution of government that I thought would stand has fallen. So I feel like the people are the last bastion against fascism, and that’s the one voice that I hope still counts for something. 

 This article first appeared here: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/04/06/thousands-gather-at-ohio-statehouse-in-hands-off-to-protest-trump/?emci=8bb7e441-5f11-f011-8b3d-0022482a9fb7&emdi=4526e40b-9713-f011-8b3d-0022482a9fb7&ceid=154687